George Herbert on Prayer (1)

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. Luke 18.1

To follow Jesus means many things, but unless we follow Him in the most fundamental of things, we shall have difficulty keeping up in the others.

Prayer is the most fundamental Christian activity. Jesus said that we ought always to pray, and not lose heart. Surely we are all a far cry from following Him in this command. Paul understood the importance of it: “Pray without ceasing”, he insisted (1 Thess. 5.17), an exhortation which we tend to accept as a form of spiritual hyperbole meant, not to demand the obvious, but merely to suggest an orientation in life which, nevertheless, most of us do not sustain for very long.

But what if Jesus meant what He said? What if He intends that we should somehow learn to pray at all times and not grow weary of praying? What would that mean? What would it look like in our lives? What benefit might we expect to gain from it, and how can we possibly rise to such a standard?

Two things are necessary: First, we must agree in our hearts that Jesus intends us always to pray and not to lose heart or grow weary in this most fundamental of Christian disciplines. Unless we conclude this, all other study or discussion of prayer will be perfunctory, leaving us in a mode of picking and choosing with respect to our prayer lives, a mode which will always find us leaving more behind than what we actually put on our plates.

Second, we will need guidance in how to attain this objective. For that we should look to those who can help us because they seem to have understood and practiced prayer more along the lines of what Jesus expects than what most of us typically experience.

We may look to many sources for such counsel; the pages of church history are filled with examples of prayers and saints who prayed from whose lives we may gain insight to how we should take up the various teachings and exhortations of Scripture concerning the work of prayer.

One such believing forebear is George Herbert, the greatest of the 17^th century “metaphysical” (spiritual or religious) poets. By all accounts, Herbert was a true saint, an honest, pure, loving, faithful servant of the Lord and His Church, and his poetry has been loved and emulated by readers and poets since before his death in 1633. 

In his poem, “Prayer (1)”, Herbert holds up the work of prayer like a gem with many facets, slowly turning it in the light so that we can appreciate all the beauty and power this crown jewel of spiritual discipline holds for us:

Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,
  God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
  The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,
  Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
  The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
  Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
  Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
  Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
  The land of spices; something understood.

As we shall see in subsequent installments, Herbert provides an understanding of prayer as to its true essence, purpose, and power which can help us to embrace the task of learning to pray always with great joy and anticipation. As we unpack the tight, rich symbolism of this compact sonnet, we may expect to find our knowledge of prayer enriched, and, hopefully, our desire to engage it more effectively sparked.

A conversation starter: Talk with some of your Christian friends about the work of prayer. How do they approach it? Would they say that they “pray always” and do not “lose heart” in their prayers? Consider how you might help one another to learn more of the value and use of prayer, so that you gain more of its benefits.

T. M.’s books on prayer include God’s Prayer Program, a guide to learning how to pray the psalms; The Psalms for Prayer, in which all the psalms are set up to guide you in how to pray them; and If Men Will Pray, a serious attempt to call men of faith to greater diligence in prayer. Follow the links provided here to purchase these from our online store.